Description is how archivists represent records and their context so that people can find, understand and trust them. A description captures what the records are, who created them, when, and under what conditions they can be accessed. Standardised description makes finding aids consistent within an institution and interoperable across the world, which is essential for online discovery and data exchange.

Description mirrors arrangement: it is multilevel, moving from a broad summary of the fonds down to series, files and, where warranted, items, with information inherited from higher levels rather than repeated.

The core content standards

  • ISAD(G): the General International Standard Archival Description, defining 26 elements across seven areas (identity, context, content, conditions of access, allied materials, notes, description control).
  • ISAAR(CPF): the companion standard for describing the creators - corporate bodies, persons and families - as separate authority records.
  • Records in Contexts (RiC): the ICA's newer conceptual model and ontology that expresses archival relationships as linked data rather than a strict hierarchy.
  • DACS, RAD and other national rules apply these principles within specific descriptive traditions.

Encoding & interoperability

Content standards say what to record; encoding standards say how to structure it for machines. EAD (Encoded Archival Description) is the XML schema for full finding aids, and EAC-CPF encodes authority records. Simpler metadata such as Dublin Core supports lightweight exchange and harvesting via protocols like OAI-PMH. Persistent identifiers keep links stable over time.

In practice. Separate the creator from the records. Maintain reusable authority records for people and organisations (ISAAR/EAC-CPF) and link descriptions to them - it prevents duplication, disambiguates names, and lets one creator connect many fonds.

Access points & authority control

Consistent access points - names, subjects, places and functions drawn from controlled vocabularies - let users navigate across collections. Aligning terms with recognised authorities and thesauri, and increasingly publishing them as linked open data, makes archival description discoverable well beyond the reading room.

Key takeaways

  • ISAD(G) and ISAAR(CPF) provide multilevel description and creator authority records.
  • EAD, EAC-CPF and Dublin Core encode description for exchange and harvesting.
  • RiC reframes description as linked-data relationships; authority control ties it together.

Check your understanding

Last modified: Saturday, 1 August 2026, 10:37 AM